September 4, 2026 • 12 mins
You may know him as the villain in the film 'Gladiator', but the real-life Emperor Commodus is said to have been even more cruel and megalomaniacal. Learn about his unusual upbringing, how he made himself into a gladiator and an image of Hercules, and his eventual assassination in today's episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-figures/commodus.htm
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to BrainStuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey BrainStuff, Lauren
Vogelbaum here. If the name Commodus sounds familiar, it may
be from the film Gladiator, released in the year 2000
from director Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe. The movie's
villainous emperor, played with slimy panache by Joaquin Phoenix, is
(00:24):
based on a real-life Roman emperor named Commodus. He lived
from the years 161 to 192 CE, and a historian
a few decades later called him a greater curse to
the Romans than any pestilence or any crime. There are
lurid stories about Commodus' unquenchable appetite for sex and violence,
(00:46):
that he had 600 concubines, mostly young women and boys,
and that he slaughtered scores of men and wild animals
in gladiatorial bloodbaths, and that he rubbed his skin and
hair with the blood of his victims. But these tales
should be taken with a large grain of salt. For
the article this episode is based on, HowStuffWorks spoke with
(01:06):
Barry Strauss, a classicist and military historian at Cornell University
and author of nine books on ancient history. He explained,
the ancient sources are full of malicious gossip about all
the emperors. The sources were written either by senators or
by people who made their living being paid by senators.
Marcus Aurelius was the most kind to the Senate, so
(01:28):
he got good press. Commodus was just the opposite. He
killed a lot of senators, so of course they trashed him. Yes,
Marcus Aurelius was an exception. He was Commodus' father and
predecessor as emperor. Marcus was a morally upright and beloved
emperor who ruled Rome through a devastating plague epidemic and
(01:50):
endless frontier wars against invading Germanic tribes. He also penned Meditations,
a philosophical memoir that remains a classic of Stoic philosophy.
Commodus was the only surviving son of Marcus Aurelius with
Faustina the Younger, the daughter of Marcus's predecessor. Commodus was
hand-picked to succeed his father's emperor, partially to shore up
(02:14):
the line of succession and prevent rebellion. When Commodus was
just 11 years old, he joined his father at the
frontier encampments where Marcus was leading Roman troops to battle.
and at 15, his father named him co-emperor. This was
all highly unusual. The emperorship didn't often pass to a
biological son, and this was the first time in the
(02:35):
history of the empire that a child had been raised
with the office in mind. So what was Commodus like
at that point? Some of the few clues that we
have to go by are from the aforementioned historian Cassius Dio.
He was a senator who wrote an extensive history of
Rome during the first couple decades of the 200 CE,
(02:57):
and he was no fan of Commodus, so he may
have exaggerated or invented some of his faults. He describes
young Commodus as a clueless coward who fell in with
the wrong crowd. Here's a word from Dio, translated by
Ernest Carey in the early 1900s. Quote, Commodus was not
(03:17):
naturally wicked, but, on the contrary, as guileless as any
man that ever lived. His great simplicity, however, together with
his cowardice, made him the slave of his companions. And
it was through them that he at first, out of ignorance,
missed the better life, and then was led on into
lustful and cruel habits, which soon became second nature. Whatever
(03:41):
the case, when Marcus Aurelius died, probably from the plague
but reportedly at his son's hand, Commodus was crowned sole
emperor at age 18 in 180 CE. Unlike his father,
who fought tirelessly against the Germanic tribes, Commodus immediately struck
peace accords and made a beeline for Rome. Dio wrote,
(04:03):
for he hated all exertion and craved the comfortable life
of the city. Back in Rome, Commodus systematically killed all
of his perceived enemies in the Senate, as well as
anyone else who appeared to have the wealth and renown
to overthrow him, again, according to Dio. Dio wrote, This
created something of a power vacuum, and a number of
(04:23):
friends and sycophants are said to have come into high
offices at this time, some of whom used their newfound
power to line their own pockets. An official bust of
Commodus carved in Rome around that time, circa 180 CE,
(04:47):
depicts the young emperor in relatively straightforward military dress, notably
not styled as either a senator or a religious figure.
But Dio reported that Commodus wasn't really into the daily
grind of governing. He left the work of conducting military
affairs and standing as the head of the state to
a series of military leaders who came into his favor
(05:09):
and often fell out of it hard. Commodus busied himself
with preferred activities like horse and chariot racing. Of course,
gladiatorial contests were big entertainment in ancient Rome, and Commodus,
like other emperors, knew how to stage a spectacle. But
Commodus went a step further. he dressed up like a
(05:30):
gladiator and fought in the contests himself. Emperors were supposed
to be above the base violence of the gladiatorial ring,
but Commodus apparently fancied himself the people's champion and a
skillful fighter. Strauss said, it was kind of scandalous. According
to Dio, Commodus slaughtered animals, both domestic and wild, the
(05:52):
wilder ones like bears, tigers, and elephants from a safe
distance with spears and javelins. As for fighting people, Commodus
didn't fight to the death in public. He'd compete with
a wooden sword against other athletes and gladiators, collecting a
handsome son from the gladiatorial fund every day. Because, of course,
he always won. Insert Dio's eye roll here. We know
(06:17):
that the Coliseum, which had been inaugurated a century before
in 80 CE, was home to amazing spectacles. Orchestras played
music during the fights and other displays. The entire floor
of the amphitheater was built atop a series of tunnels, trapdoors,
and machinery underground so that animals, props, or people could
appear like magic. Commodus probably popped into the arena via
(06:42):
this network. There may have been elaborate costumes and stunt
doubles involved. Dio wrote that the senators were compelled to
attend all of these spectacles, and even to cheer on
Commodus with scripted chants, including this mouthful, Commodus certainly didn't
suffer from a lack of confidence. He called himself the
(07:02):
Roman Hercules, and even dressed the part with a full
lion skin and club. A later bust portrait of Commodus,
carved near the end of his life, around late 191
or 192 CE, portrays him in this getup, the lion's
(07:29):
skin tied at his neck by its paws, its fearsome
upper jaw crowning his curly hair. He holds Hercules' club
in one hand and the mythic golden apples of the
Hesperides in the other. Far from the simple base of
his earlier bust, this one sits on symbols of divinity.
He's held up by two kneeling Amazons, two Tritons, two Cornucopias,
(07:52):
and a shield bearing symbols of the god Jupiter, Hercules' father.
He wasn't the first emperor to cultivate an association with
the gods, but he took it further than most. A
later biography of Commodus, written at least a century after
his rule in the collection Historia Augusta, claims that he
wore gold dust in his hair to dazzle his onlookers,
(08:15):
though that may be sheer hearsay. What's more sure is
that Commodus renamed things after himself, and not small things either.
After a fire raged through Rome in 191, he refounded
it as, in translation, Commodus City. He also renamed the
months of the year after 12 of his names, including
(08:37):
Amazonius and Hercules. And outside of the Colosseum, he refreshed
a grand statue of Emperor Nero, another interesting leader, with
his own likeness, and had a bronze statue of a
lion placed at its feet. When Commodus sent messages to
the Senate, Dio wrote, they began with his full 12
(08:59):
names and several other titles, including the pacifier of the
whole earth, the invincible, and the Roman Hercules. Strauss questions
the veracity of Cassius Dio's reports, but points out that
Commodus certainly wasn't the only Roman emperor to have megalomaniacal
tendencies or to act like a tyrant. It's the sheer
(09:21):
level of Commodus' eccentricity that stands out. A man like
Commodus makes a lot of enemies, and during his 12-year
solo reign, he survived numerous assassination attempts, including one plotted
by a number of senators with his oldest sister, whom
he exiled and later executed. But fate finally caught up
(09:42):
to Commodus on New Year's Eve in the year 192.
two of his highest officials, along with his favored and
politically powerful mistress, Marcia, tried to poison him. And when
that failed, they sent his wrestling partner to strangle him
in his bath. The reign of Commodus is sometimes pegged
as the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire,
(10:04):
though of course there are a lot of complex reasons
that an empire falls, and the subject is still argued today.
His death was followed by a bloody and Commodus didn't
do that on purpose. It happened because he was a failure.
But out of the chaos that was his reign, not
everything that happened was bad. Some modern researchers posit that
(10:30):
there was some method to Commodus' breathlessly reported madness. His
early peace treaty with longtime enemies may have been just
what was needed by an exhausted empire. Given his privileged upbringing,
the Senate might have been against him no matter what
his behavior. Even his divine posturing may have been a
(10:50):
way to exert control in uncertain times, more than a
reflection of megalomania. The long civil war ended with the
establishment of the Severan dynasty, a run of emperors hailing
from North Africa, Syria, and other corners of the Roman Empire.
Although the Senate had condemned Commodus' memory following his assassination,
(11:11):
the first Severan empire, Septimius Severus, claimed a familial relation
to Marcus Aurelius, and thus restored Commodus' name. And that's how,
although he deservedly or undeservedly went down in history as
one of Rome's worst emperors, Commodus was formally made an
imperial deity. Today's episode is based on the article, The
(11:38):
True History of Commodus, The Mad Emperor of Ancient Rome,
on HowStuffWorks.com, written by Dave Ruse. BrainStuff is a production
of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with HowStuffWorks.com and is produced
by Tyler Klang. For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to BrainStuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey BrainStuff, Lauren
Vogelbaum here. If the name Commodus sounds familiar, it may
be from the film Gladiator, released in the year 2000
from director Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe. The movie's
villainous emperor, played with slimy panache by Joaquin Phoenix, is
(00:24):
based on a real-life Roman emperor named Commodus. He lived
from the years 161 to 192 CE, and a historian
a few decades later called him a greater curse to
the Romans than any pestilence or any crime. There are
lurid stories about Commodus' unquenchable appetite for sex and violence,
(00:46):
that he had 600 concubines, mostly young women and boys,
and that he slaughtered scores of men and wild animals
in gladiatorial bloodbaths, and that he rubbed his skin and
hair with the blood of his victims. But these tales
should be taken with a large grain of salt. For
the article this episode is based on, HowStuffWorks spoke with
(01:06):
Barry Strauss, a classicist and military historian at Cornell University
and author of nine books on ancient history. He explained,
the ancient sources are full of malicious gossip about all
the emperors. The sources were written either by senators or
by people who made their living being paid by senators.
Marcus Aurelius was the most kind to the Senate, so
(01:28):
he got good press. Commodus was just the opposite. He
killed a lot of senators, so of course they trashed him. Yes,
Marcus Aurelius was an exception. He was Commodus' father and
predecessor as emperor. Marcus was a morally upright and beloved
emperor who ruled Rome through a devastating plague epidemic and
(01:50):
endless frontier wars against invading Germanic tribes. He also penned Meditations,
a philosophical memoir that remains a classic of Stoic philosophy.
Commodus was the only surviving son of Marcus Aurelius with
Faustina the Younger, the daughter of Marcus's predecessor. Commodus was
hand-picked to succeed his father's emperor, partially to shore up
(02:14):
the line of succession and prevent rebellion. When Commodus was
just 11 years old, he joined his father at the
frontier encampments where Marcus was leading Roman troops to battle.
and at 15, his father named him co-emperor. This was
all highly unusual. The emperorship didn't often pass to a
biological son, and this was the first time in the
(02:35):
history of the empire that a child had been raised
with the office in mind. So what was Commodus like
at that point? Some of the few clues that we
have to go by are from the aforementioned historian Cassius Dio.
He was a senator who wrote an extensive history of
Rome during the first couple decades of the 200 CE,
(02:57):
and he was no fan of Commodus, so he may
have exaggerated or invented some of his faults. He describes
young Commodus as a clueless coward who fell in with
the wrong crowd. Here's a word from Dio, translated by
Ernest Carey in the early 1900s. Quote, Commodus was not
(03:17):
naturally wicked, but, on the contrary, as guileless as any
man that ever lived. His great simplicity, however, together with
his cowardice, made him the slave of his companions. And
it was through them that he at first, out of ignorance,
missed the better life, and then was led on into
lustful and cruel habits, which soon became second nature. Whatever
(03:41):
the case, when Marcus Aurelius died, probably from the plague
but reportedly at his son's hand, Commodus was crowned sole
emperor at age 18 in 180 CE. Unlike his father,
who fought tirelessly against the Germanic tribes, Commodus immediately struck
peace accords and made a beeline for Rome. Dio wrote,
(04:03):
for he hated all exertion and craved the comfortable life
of the city. Back in Rome, Commodus systematically killed all
of his perceived enemies in the Senate, as well as
anyone else who appeared to have the wealth and renown
to overthrow him, again, according to Dio. Dio wrote, This
created something of a power vacuum, and a number of
(04:23):
friends and sycophants are said to have come into high
offices at this time, some of whom used their newfound
power to line their own pockets. An official bust of
Commodus carved in Rome around that time, circa 180 CE,
(04:47):
depicts the young emperor in relatively straightforward military dress, notably
not styled as either a senator or a religious figure.
But Dio reported that Commodus wasn't really into the daily
grind of governing. He left the work of conducting military
affairs and standing as the head of the state to
a series of military leaders who came into his favor
(05:09):
and often fell out of it hard. Commodus busied himself
with preferred activities like horse and chariot racing. Of course,
gladiatorial contests were big entertainment in ancient Rome, and Commodus,
like other emperors, knew how to stage a spectacle. But
Commodus went a step further. he dressed up like a
(05:30):
gladiator and fought in the contests himself. Emperors were supposed
to be above the base violence of the gladiatorial ring,
but Commodus apparently fancied himself the people's champion and a
skillful fighter. Strauss said, it was kind of scandalous. According
to Dio, Commodus slaughtered animals, both domestic and wild, the
(05:52):
wilder ones like bears, tigers, and elephants from a safe
distance with spears and javelins. As for fighting people, Commodus
didn't fight to the death in public. He'd compete with
a wooden sword against other athletes and gladiators, collecting a
handsome son from the gladiatorial fund every day. Because, of course,
he always won. Insert Dio's eye roll here. We know
(06:17):
that the Coliseum, which had been inaugurated a century before
in 80 CE, was home to amazing spectacles. Orchestras played
music during the fights and other displays. The entire floor
of the amphitheater was built atop a series of tunnels, trapdoors,
and machinery underground so that animals, props, or people could
appear like magic. Commodus probably popped into the arena via
(06:42):
this network. There may have been elaborate costumes and stunt
doubles involved. Dio wrote that the senators were compelled to
attend all of these spectacles, and even to cheer on
Commodus with scripted chants, including this mouthful, Commodus certainly didn't
suffer from a lack of confidence. He called himself the
(07:02):
Roman Hercules, and even dressed the part with a full
lion skin and club. A later bust portrait of Commodus,
carved near the end of his life, around late 191
or 192 CE, portrays him in this getup, the lion's
(07:29):
skin tied at his neck by its paws, its fearsome
upper jaw crowning his curly hair. He holds Hercules' club
in one hand and the mythic golden apples of the
Hesperides in the other. Far from the simple base of
his earlier bust, this one sits on symbols of divinity.
He's held up by two kneeling Amazons, two Tritons, two Cornucopias,
(07:52):
and a shield bearing symbols of the god Jupiter, Hercules' father.
He wasn't the first emperor to cultivate an association with
the gods, but he took it further than most. A
later biography of Commodus, written at least a century after
his rule in the collection Historia Augusta, claims that he
wore gold dust in his hair to dazzle his onlookers,
(08:15):
though that may be sheer hearsay. What's more sure is
that Commodus renamed things after himself, and not small things either.
After a fire raged through Rome in 191, he refounded
it as, in translation, Commodus City. He also renamed the
months of the year after 12 of his names, including
(08:37):
Amazonius and Hercules. And outside of the Colosseum, he refreshed
a grand statue of Emperor Nero, another interesting leader, with
his own likeness, and had a bronze statue of a
lion placed at its feet. When Commodus sent messages to
the Senate, Dio wrote, they began with his full 12
(08:59):
names and several other titles, including the pacifier of the
whole earth, the invincible, and the Roman Hercules. Strauss questions
the veracity of Cassius Dio's reports, but points out that
Commodus certainly wasn't the only Roman emperor to have megalomaniacal
tendencies or to act like a tyrant. It's the sheer
(09:21):
level of Commodus' eccentricity that stands out. A man like
Commodus makes a lot of enemies, and during his 12-year
solo reign, he survived numerous assassination attempts, including one plotted
by a number of senators with his oldest sister, whom
he exiled and later executed. But fate finally caught up
(09:42):
to Commodus on New Year's Eve in the year 192.
two of his highest officials, along with his favored and
politically powerful mistress, Marcia, tried to poison him. And when
that failed, they sent his wrestling partner to strangle him
in his bath. The reign of Commodus is sometimes pegged
as the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire,
(10:04):
though of course there are a lot of complex reasons
that an empire falls, and the subject is still argued today.
His death was followed by a bloody and Commodus didn't
do that on purpose. It happened because he was a failure.
But out of the chaos that was his reign, not
everything that happened was bad. Some modern researchers posit that
(10:30):
there was some method to Commodus' breathlessly reported madness. His
early peace treaty with longtime enemies may have been just
what was needed by an exhausted empire. Given his privileged upbringing,
the Senate might have been against him no matter what
his behavior. Even his divine posturing may have been a
(10:50):
way to exert control in uncertain times, more than a
reflection of megalomania. The long civil war ended with the
establishment of the Severan dynasty, a run of emperors hailing
from North Africa, Syria, and other corners of the Roman Empire.
Although the Senate had condemned Commodus' memory following his assassination,
(11:11):
the first Severan empire, Septimius Severus, claimed a familial relation
to Marcus Aurelius, and thus restored Commodus' name. And that's how,
although he deservedly or undeservedly went down in history as
one of Rome's worst emperors, Commodus was formally made an
imperial deity. Today's episode is based on the article, The
(11:38):
True History of Commodus, The Mad Emperor of Ancient Rome,
on HowStuffWorks.com, written by Dave Ruse. BrainStuff is a production
of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with HowStuffWorks.com and is produced
by Tyler Klang. For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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Host
Lauren Vogelbaum
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